My new doctor put me on Provigil so I could sleep through the whole night continuously. I read the prescribing info for it and allegedly it might be bad news for the liver if it is trying to metabolize Provigil and alcohol at the same time. My doc says that one or two drinks once in a while should be fine, but even just a sip of wine feels weird with this drug in my veins. After years of not being able to sleep for more than three hours, if at all, I can do without the alcohol.

think i had two (maybe three) beers on new year's eve after being lightly stoned throughout much of the day.

mostly i just needed one beer to put all that pacing around the bus stop behind me. (i'd missed my first bus so i was waiting around for nearly two hours.) but after that first beer, everything was A-OK and i was a person again. until then, though, i was feeling ruffled beyond belief, questioning everything under the sun, palms sweating, teeth clenched, eyes fallign out of their sockets.

in such instances, alcohol is a godsend. like an old movie in which a crude surgery must be performed and the soon to be amputee is offered a flask of fire water, not so much to dull the pain as to dull his awareness of it.

Champion Rabbit wrote:I can't think of any good reasons not to...

How about a nice bottle of wine with a meal, that's a fairly solid reason not to stop drinking?

Drinking isn't always about getting drunk. I suggest you stop drinking US domestic beer, it is by far the most boring booze in the planet - bar Fosters-, and start a love affair with one of the cornerstones of Western Civilization*

Remember, there is nothing moral or immoral about drinking a liquid, whatever America teen-soaps would have you believe.

Viva il vino!

* -The other two are cheese and bread-

Gramsci wrote:start a love affair with one of the cornerstones of Western Civilization*

...

* -The other two are cheese and bread-

I could not have put it better myself. Bread, cheese, wine - fuck that's a holy trinity. You've almost inspired me to create a favourite cheeses topic. Although it's probably been done already.

cjh wrote:#1 - a booze-free January at least.

Same here (Although I'm going to make one exception for my partner's delayed Xmas work party. Some drinks will help that night along no small amount). Too often, alcohol is a social aid for me to the extent it increases my tolerance for inane or mediocre conversation.

But I genuinely enjoy wine, scotch, and beer very much.

Though I can afford none of them, I too often 'wind down' in the evening with one. Alcohol is without doubt my vice.

No more, for a while. Should aid the winter marathon training, if not the winter blues.

it was my 21st birthday like 3 days ago, so i went out for a drink with my friends and brother, but i usually dont like being drunk..i feel outta control..same with mushrooms and those type of drugs..
so i usually only smoke pot, that would be my vice, and i would recommend it as an alternative to alcohol, if you have to experience some sort of altered state.

I'm considering cutting down a lot.

I got totally wankered on New Year's Eve, and apart from generally making a fool of myself, I spent the whole next day being sick in bed, and then the next day feeling slightly nauseous and generally crap.

I tend to do this a few times a year though.

At the most I drink about 5-6 sips of an alcoholic beverage a year, normally at a social event and out of social conformity. I'm not very good at social conformity, and so when I try, I tend to do it half-ass at best.

I mostly don't drink because I generally don't enjoy the feeling of intoxication via a central nervous system suppressant. I'm really more of an opiate kind of gal (gotta stay away from those too). It doesn't take much to get me drunk either, which seems to be too easy of an incentive for some guys.

I've also never particularly enjoyed being around regular drinkers and especially drunks. Unlike Steve, I don't find drinkers more social or funnier. I have no desire to be more social and funnier myself, so it's best we just go our separate ways.

Around 1999, I was inspired to be the next F. Scott Fitzgerald/Ernest Hemingway, and made my best shot at being a miserable, alcoholic yet brilliant novelist. I couldn't pull it off on any level, not even the alcoholic part. If I get drunk once, I find alcohol repulsive for months to years afterwards. See, I'm even a failure at self-destruction.

Alcohol also seriously screws with my blood pressure, and since I'm getting older I have watch that.

There are alcoholic drinks which I actually like the taste - dark ales like Negra Modelo (the best dark ale, period - Mexicans know their ale), bitters, some wine, some vodka-fruit juice drinks, anise/licorice flavored liquors like Sambuca. I just don't have much motivation to drink them.

I quit for four months in the summer for health reasons, along with everything else psychoactive apart from caffeine. It was without doubt the best I've ever felt in my life. I didn't go out much though, which helped, but even though I was aware of the possible backlash, I fell for it. Now I'm a wheezing, pale dog again.